Ponting: a final fling

Malcolm Knox
Published: December 3, 2012 - 3:00AM

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NON-cricket people give you a funny look when you say Test matches can change in a twinkling. The most they will allow is that cricket, like war, is made up of long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

The terror has been Australia's as it has seen its pretensions to the nominal world championship of Test cricket fade away over the course of a sunny Perth weekend.

On Monday, it will bat with what seem to be academic targets: 592 runs to win, or two days to survive. It starts at 0-40 in the last innings of Ricky Ponting's Test career. With two days left to bat and a record chase, he'll certainly have plenty of time to build a big score.

Australia's chances of avoiding defeat are somewhat less credible than South Africa's were on the last day in Adelaide.

So strong had Australia's position been in the Tests in Brisbane and Adelaide, it must now feel like a man arriving home from a market fumbling for where his wallet used to be.

The telling change came over the series that suddenly. The first two Tests had finished with Australia pressing for victory and South Africa dug into resistance mode.

On Saturday morning, Australia turned up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after the first-innings success of their all-new pace attack. But in a matter of microseconds in cricket time, prior readings of the teams' relative strengths were rudely inverted.

Champions don't have to win every session, just the ones that count. It counted on Saturday morning when Dale Steyn blitzed the Australian top order. It counted for Saturday and Sunday afternoons, as South Africa unveiled a sparkling brand of batting, the awe to follow the shock.

Centuries from Hashim Amla and A.B. de Villiers, two batsmen any cricket lover ought to drop everything to watch, showed the polish and versatility that has turned the Proteas into a worthy world No. 1.

with AAP

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/ponting-a-final-fling-20121202-2apgf.html